The Perplexing Case of Watson Toad
by A Specter No More
Summary: Full Title: The Perplexing Case of the Mysterious Death of Watson Toad.    There has been a murder in Rogueport, and nobody seems to be bright enough to solve the case! It is up to the Russian Bob-Omb, Mr. Grad to conquer the crime and solve the murder!
1. Prologue

**The Perplexing Case of the Mysterious Death of Watson Toad**

**Prologue**

I was called at around 10:00 pm. Fine, you want exacts? 10:27 pm. I was actually thinking about bed right at the time the call was made to me from the local Rogueport Police Department.

"Mr. Grad?" The Chief said. No introductions. Typical.

"Yes, Chief?"

"We have a DB down in front of the Inn in Rogueport square."

"A DB, mister Portly?"

"Uh…a **D**ead **B**ody, Mr. Grad." He seemed to reply in disgust.

Hey, I'm not into the whole fancy-shmancy police abbreviation thing. I don't care how "cool" the kids think it is.

"Whatever." Is all that leaves my lips.

"We've got some uniforms checking it out, but they're at a loss, can you help us out? This one is pretty important." Chief Portly continues.

I thought about it for a moment, but since I heard that it was "Important", it probably had good pay, and after my little "explosion" at the pub the other day, I concluded I should probably take it to pay the damage costs.

I quickly donned my cap and made sure that my mustache was properly groomed and headed out. It took me about 30 minutes to get to Rogueport from my humble little abode from Poshly Heights. The underground warp tunnel route was a little messy, which hindered my time. It was raining in Rogueport when I got there, you would think that it is the perfect scenario for solving another crime. The hard pouring rain and the dark atmosphere made it perfectly mysterious and gloomy in such a way that a murder was just begging to be solved. I thought the same…until I came to the murder site, and saw that the body was completely exposed to the rain. Blood, trace, and any piece of evidence was washed away by mother nature to make sure that the beautiful little worn down, crime-ridden town of Rogueport was nice and clean, conveniently on this particular night, oh, and on top of that, the local police didn't care to put any tarp over this dead body to at any chance preserve any sort of evidence. Way to go, score one for the local authorities. After screaming in my head to the frustration I had toward the local police, I decided to finally step in and start this probably impossible case.

Oh, I guess I should introduce myself! My apologies, I get quite carried away when I'm telling stories. My name is Dimitri Grad. I am a brown bob-omb, with a nice, long, and very-well-groomed grey mustache. I normally don my nice, black plaid detective's hat (Don't say it's cliché, it's black not brown. And besides, I got it on sale).

That "explosion" at the pub? Oh dear friend, you thought I was speaking figuratively? Ho ho, my comrade, What I said was 100% accurate! Don't fret though, I only blew up the front bar, I had my reasons, too. A young and rather cocky boy was making jokes of my accent! Yes…I do have what you would call a Russian accent, but let us not dwell on the details.

Ah…where was I? Oh yes. The scene of the crime. I walked up to Chief Portly, a rather large mouse with a slight under bite and graying fur. I asked him for the details of this poor dead fellow.

"The name of DB is—" Portly quickly stopped himself and glanced at me. I simply rolled my eyes at his use of abbreviations. "—the name is Watson Toad. He's obviously a toad no doubt and is 27 years old. He was reported by the Inn Keeper when she came she heard what sounded like two men yelling. Oh, and when I say she reported, I really mean she just screamed her lungs out."

"What is the cause of death, Mister Portly?" I asked quietly as I was already examining what was really left of this pathetically detail-lacking crime scene.

"It appears that there was a stab wound in the chest, however we don't know if he bled out or died before from the rain." Portly said, knowing what was coming next.

"Well, that could've been prevented now, couldn't it?" I scoffed. Portly looked up and sighed. Ignorance is a beautiful thing.

"There is one other thing though," Portly finally said. "There's also a blunt force trauma to the head, from what seems to be above him at the time of death."

"Really now?" I replied. I walked up to the body to see what story it had to tell. One of the first things I observed is the lack of a ring on his left ring finger, meaning he wasn't married or stolen from. Mister Toad also had a large bruise on the left side of his waist, and other on his arm accompanied with a rather odd looking cut. He had a black right eye and a few missing teeth, which suggested a fight of some sort before he died. Then I saw the two possible causes of death: A stab wound in the chest that was made by a rather large knife or rather short sword (wouldn't be surprised quite honestly), and a long, tube shaped bruise on the top of his head. Either of the two could've been the cause of this Toad's death, but it was nearly impossible to tell, mainly because of the ignorant idiots we have for a local police force not thinking to cover the crime scene. If there was a pool of blood it would've been obvious that the stab killed, but life isn't that easy for me, and these cops made it harder.

"So Mister Portly," I said, leaning back up after making my observations, "our first question arises. What killed Mister Watson Toad? The stab or the drop?"

Little did I know I was in for one of my craziest cases that I have ever had to date.


	2. Chapter 1: The Inn

**Chapter 1**

**The Inn**

I decided that a good night's sleep was a necessary thing to do. The next morning I was back at Rogueport. After seeing that Watson Toad was carried away, and the area where his drenched corpse laid was taped off by yellow tape, I deemed it a good action to first ask the Inn keeper what her night was like last night. I'm sure she was frightened, normally shrieks loud enough to wake up a whole town's worth of people means the screamer was frightened to an extreme.

I stepped into the Inn to be welcomed by the stench of new alcohol. Whoever bought that stuff was ripped off because that beer hadn't been aged a bit. I knew that the Inn keeper was always upstairs, so I decided to hop up—hey, don't laugh! Those stairs were not designed with bob-ombs in mind!

…Anyways, I _got_ up the stairs and found the Inn keeper spreading blankets on the bed.

"Hello, young lady, I'm Mist—"

"I'm 22." She retorted.

"And I'm 47." I quickly shot back. "I'm Mister Grad, a detective that is trying to solve the case of Watson Toad. Can you—"

"Yea, I know you." She interrupted…again. "You're that one guy who blew up at the pub."

"It was for good reason thank you very much! Can I continue?" I paused to make sure that she didn't spurt up another sentence. "As I was saying, can you tell me about what happened last night?"

"Yea…" The Inn keeper said, her tone slightly changing. "Last night I was just finishing up some chores around the place and making sure everything was tidy, then I suddenly heard two guys from outside yelling. I didn't take too much interest to it, ya know? Then suddenly, I heard a large thud, and a sharp yell, and then I thought something had happen ''—"

"Miss…" I tried stopping her.

"'''tknowwhattodoandsaid'weshouldn''butIthoughtthat—"

"Miss…"

"'''it'sok'andIsaid'butaguy'sdead'and—"

"That's quite enough Miss!" I finally shouted, making her petrify in front of me. "You helped enough, I'll be leaving now, thank you. All I need to know now is if the second floor door is unlocked."

"Oh…yea." The Inn keeper said. She spun around and went back to spreading the blankets.

What an odd young lady.

Okay, I gathered from that she heard people yelling at each other, two of them exactly outside and she heard a final yell and a large thud, so something definitely dropped. I decided that whatever dropped came from the second floor, and apparently there's a door that goes outside onto the roofs. I went outside to find a small walkway that led to the roofs across to a…store? What on earth was a store doing on a roof? That makes absolutely no sense! But wait…this is Rogueport. Nothing makes sense here. Anyways, I thought that the object seemed round, perhaps with a cylinder-like shape. I turned around to see if anything was out of place. As my eyes peered upon the side of the Inn, I noticed one thing that stood out: a whole section of the drain pipe was missing! It was a perfect fit! The pipe had a cylinder shape and a just the right size to be the blunt force trauma on Watson Toad! And do you know what else? I thought I heard that odd Inn keeper say something about a guest at the Inn something about a guest disappearing around the time of the murder. I quickly went back inside to confirm my suspicion.

"Miss?" I begun as I found her, sweeping next to the beds. "In the fewest words that you could possibly ever imagine for the sake of my sanity, can you tell me who the guest of yours was here last night?"

"Uh, well, he's not really someone I can describe because he's always wearing a cloak and talking weird. I think he's a mouse though…maybe a rat…"

"That's good enough! Say no more!" I quickly interjected. I had my first suspect! I quickly left the Inn and attempted to breath in a breath of fresh air…only to be met by pollution and the smell of rotting everything. Oh well, doesn't matter. I had a lead and now all I had to do was find this cloaked mouse!

…or rat.


	3. Chapter 2: The East Side

**Chapter 2**

**The East Side**

Now my dear comrade, you have played Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door no? I heard it was quite fun, and when (I admit) played the game myself, it was fairly accurate, just very hollywoodized. Now you know how vile of a place Rogueport is through your own experience correct? Then you should understand that I have paranoia when it comes to being in Rogueport, paranoia that some find strange, but not you dear friend, you should be able to understand me quite nicely.

Now, enough of my intro, onward with the story.

I knew that shady characters, like the cloaked rat-or-mouse thing, are normally found easily at the East part of town, so I immediately proceeded to the darkest, dirtiest and most evil part of town. As I stepped in I smelt the wretched smell of rotting lives of crime without justice (don't question me about my use of the English language). Almost immediately and on queue in my mind a blue man behind a white, mischievous mask rushed by me a like a blue blur, running right into me just enough to make me fall.

"Вы грязный гнилой мешок с дерьмом! Я выслежу Вас и распотрошу Вас, и Вы будете сожалеть обо всем, что Вы являетесь полностью, и Вам жаль, что Вы никогда не пересекаете меня! Вы найдете, что ваш дом в волочит ноги и ваша жизнь беспорядок Вы гнилой маленький кусочек мусора!" I screamed loudly and furiously at the man. Pardon my language.

I knew that the man was a worthless pickpocket, and it was also the ultimate pay-off of my paranoia.

"Aha! I have prevailed this time you worthless scum! I have no money on me!" I shouted in prevail. I felt pretty good about myself…until I turned around and saw basically every resident of the East side staring at me.

I moved on. I went on to a small little building that I have been to before. The building was basically a study owned by an old goomba by the name of Professor Frankly. Though I will say that his personality is somewhat "odd" at times, he does have quite a wealth of knowledge tucked away in his mind, and has helped me in other cases before. I knocked on the door and addressed myself. "Professor Frankly? It's me, Mister Grad. Are you there?" There was a brief silence.

"Mr. Grad? Oh yes, come in, come in!" I heard a reply. The door popped open and I saw the figure of the old and wise goomba behind the precariously large glasses he wore. I stepped inside and walked to a particular spot that I always seem to stand: right next to his desk, and from what I can tell, people stand in this spot all the time. "What seems to be the trouble, Mr. Grad?" Frankly spoke loud and clear, almost scaring me, but not quite.

"I've been working on another case, Professor, and I thought that perhaps you may know about someone I'm looking for." I stated.

"A CASE!" Frankly shouted, dazing me for a moment. That is the "odd" personality I get out of this sometimes strange professor. "I would be happy to help if I can. What do you need to know?" He finished.

I shook my head, my ears were still ringing. "Right, I'm looking for a mouse, perhaps a rat that is cloaked, slightly mysterious, and talks about weird things." I said, Frankly looked at me for a moment, almost dumbfounded.

"Is that all?" He said. Really?

"Uh…yes." I slowly said, confused. There was an awkward silence.

"RIGHT!" Oh, the yelling. "I know exactly who you're talking about!" He proudly said. I swear, the things that must go through his head. "That rat likes to live on the roofs of Rogueport and share some fascinating stories with whoever manages to actually get up there." He explained.

I was confused. "On the roofs? How do I even get up there?" I asked. This was becoming quite peculiar.

"Easy!" Frankly exclaimed, thankfully not in his 150+ decibel tone, "All you must do is cross the bridge to the east of my study, hop the fence and climb the crates that are placed next to the building. You then hop over the gap of buildings and make your way back to my study, you can't miss him." He directed.

You've got to be kidding me.

"Right…" I muttered. "What if the crates aren't there?" I asked, trying to find another way to get up to the roofs.

"Oh, they're there." Frankly said assuredly, I huffed in frustration.

"I guess I must be going then…" I slowly say, waiting for Frankly to say an easier way as I inch towards the door. I come to the door and look back one last time to see if he was about to say anything…but all I got was a face behind a large pair of round glasses and a smug little smirk.

I sighed and walked out the door, defeated.

When I was back outside, I immediately began walking in the direction Frankly sent me. As I walked to a small over pass there was a bird, a crow, something like that, I didn't really care ok? Anyways, the bird-thing stopped me, tapping the spear that he held.

"25 coins to pass, or you ain't goin' anywhere!" The bird squawked. His dirty complexion, hunching back and droopy eyes made me think he didn't want to be there, but was too stubborn or scared to leave.

"I don't have any money." I quietly said.

"Look pal, you either pay or you stay away! My orders are specifically to not let anybody through unless they're willing to pay to pass!" The bird sternly said.

"Like I said, I have no money on me, and I really need to get through. It's for an investigation." I said, trying to keep myself cool.

"Well, you can't go then!" The bird said stubbornly. "And if you don't want to go, I'm going to have to force ya!" The bird said, beginning to point his spear.

Oh no, that wasn't going to fly, not with me.

"Now see here you ignorant runt!" I began ranting. "I've got an investigation and I'm not willing to let a low life like you get in the way of it! If you are to really threaten me like that, you're going to regret it so much that you're going to begin seeing dreams of a plaque with your head on it above my fireplace and then see dreams of a plaque with your mom's head on it! You're going to whatever is left in your already rotting life burn away and never see the light of day! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME!"

The bird stood, petrified, with his eyes wide open and a still as a statue. After a few moments he just stepped to the side and hid in the closest corner.

Geez, am I that scary?

I lightly stepped through and saw the small bridge that Professor Frankly told me about. I crossed it and saw that behind a fence stood a conveniently placed set of crates that served as a staircase to the roof of the building the crates were resting against. I rolled my eyes at Frankly's accuracy in detail and hopped the fence. It surprises me that some find it difficult to jump a simple picket fence, resulting to strange methods to find other ways to bypass them. I carefully climbed the crates and made my way to the roof. These roofs were slippery I must say! I carefully stepped toward the end of roof that led to a drop straight the river below that the small bridge I crossed earlier covered. I looked down and saw the deep drop and backed up quite queasy. Am I afraid of heights? No! Surely not, comrade, I'm afraid of falling in the water! I've heard that the waters of Rogueport are infested with aquatic forms of Chain Chomps. I've never tested this myself, and quite frankly not willing to. I enjoy my humble life, thank you very much.

Moving on, I looked across the gap and saw the roofs on the other side. I looked in deep concentration and thought _It's for the investigation, it's for the investigation_ over and over and over again and finally worked up the courage to do one of the most stupid and reckless things that I have ever done, jump across from one roof to another over supposedly aquatic Chain Chomp infested waters. Before I could stop myself and think this over, I realized that my feet were already off the roof that was now behind me. I began screaming, and—

I already landed. How anticlimactic. I spun around and realized what an amazing feat I accomplished. I actually jumped from roof to roof! I jumped for joy, slipped and almost fell off the roof, and came to my senses that jumping on a slippery roof was a bad idea. I carefully turned around and began walking back toward Professor Frankly's study, just this time on the roof tops. I had to carefully choose my steps and make my way across the roofs until I came across this oddly cloaked mouse—or rat—sitting under an umbrella. Why this mouse—or rat-was sitting on the top of a roof under an umbrella baffles me to date, but I was sure that this was the one I was looking for.

"Uh, hello there, mister," I began, "I would like to ask a—"

"Would you like to hear about the Thousand Year Door?" the rat (or at least I'm sure now is a rat) mumbled, almost in a crackly voice.

"What? No. I just want to know about—"

"Do you want to know of the great heroes?" He interrupted again. Why am I always interrupted? Why?

"No! I just want to know something about last night's case!" I quickly interjected. The rat stared at me for a few moments, and then seemed to almost pop back into reality, I was beginning to think that he was a bit on the delusional side.

"Ah yes, I feel sorry for that poor fellow." He muttered.

"Well, I have been told that you were there at the Inn last night, and almost immediately after the murder, you left the scene. Why is that, Mister…?" I waited for a name.

"I didn't like the muffins." He said monotonously, refusing a name. I was caught off.

"What?" I simply replied, denying what my ears just heard.

"The muffins did not taste warm and puffy," He said, "They were stale, and didn't have the chocolate chips in them." He said with his raspy voice.

"I can't believe that, what were you really doing?" I asked again, this time with a stern tone. There was a long and awkward silence as the rat was looking down. "Excuse me, but what were you really doing?" I asked again, my patience was thinning.

"…Do you want to hear about the Thousand Year Door?" He said with a blank face when he looked back up to me. It had become obvious that the rat was losing it.

"What were you doing last night?" I asked, quite frustrated at this point.

"I don't like the muffins when they're stale and without chocolate chips." He seemed to whisper. This began to enrage me that this rat was so little minded. I was about to throw forth my fury when the laws of physics decided to hate me. I somehow lost my footing and slipped down the backside of the roof. I slid off the side and landed behind the line of buildings with a large crash, yet cushioned by another conveniently placed set of crates.

I just decided to lie there for some time, letting the pain of my back just ease off. I concluded in my mind that it's not worth the trouble to have that rat be a suspect, both for his lack of mind and out-of-reach status.


End file.
